You kids look sharp.
That’s what our great uncle would say when we showed up at the front door in our Easter outfits.
The ham would have to wait. First there was the family pageant.
We were summoned to the kitchen where we twirled and showed off our new duds to the extended family — the aunts, the uncles, Grandmom, and PopPop. These were my father’s people. Every spring, Uncle Clinton and Aunt Ginny, who did not have kids of their own, sprung for new outfits. They made an evening out of it, a shopping spree with dinner.
The outfits were soup to nuts — a skirt or frock for me, plus bonnet, handbag, knee highs, sometimes a new coat. The boys got suits. We all got new shoes.
We believed in the Easter Bunny more than Jesus. After all, the Bunny figured out how to get inside the house while we were sleeping and leave us baskets of treats. Jelly beans. Solid chocolate bunnies. Eggs of all kinds but hard-boiled: Speckled malted milk, coconut-filled, creme-filled.
We were allowed to have candy for breakfast but quickly had to get dressed in our get-ups, take pictures and head to church. My father, who was allergic to church, snapped the photos. The rest of us piled into my mother’s orange hatchback Pinto, and off we went.
The ham was studded with cloves and glazed with 7UP. There may have been scalloped potatoes out of the box. You know the one. The other “vegetable” was French-fried string bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup. Ambrosia, that weird salad with canned mandarin oranges and sour cream, made an appearance. I’m sure there were Parker House rolls. After dinner, the men played pinochle in the basement, drank Scotch. If we kids were lucky, it would be warm enough to run in the yard in our outfits.
Beautiful!
Love this and these photos!